Sunburn- phoebus apollo

--xiii. they wrestle santa's evil twin

"TELL ME WHEN IT'S OVER," Thalia said. Her eyes were shut tight. The statue was holding on to them so they couldn't fall, but still Thalia clutched his arm like it was the most important thing in the world.

"Everything's fine," Rhea promised.

"Are... are we very high?"

Rhea looked down. Below them, a range of snowy mountains zipped by. The daughter of Poseidon stretched out her foot and kicked snow off one of the peaks.

"Nah," Rhea said. "Not that high."

"We are in the Sierras.'" Zoe yelled. She and Grover were hanging from the arms of the other statue. "I have hunted here before. At this speed, we should be in San Francisco in a few hours."

"Hey, hey, Frisco!" their angel said. "Yo, Chuck! We could visit those guys at the Mechanics Monument again! They know how to party!"

"Oh, man," the other angel said. "I am so there!"

"You guys have visited San Francisco?" Percy asked.

"We automatons gotta have some fun once in a while, right?" their statue said. "Those mechanics took us over to the de Young Museum and introduced us to these marble lady statues, see. And—"

"Hank!" the other statue Chuck cut in. "They're kids, man."

"Oh, right." If bronze statues could blush, Rhea swore Hank did. "Back to flying."

They sped up, so Rhea could tell the angels were excited. The mountains fell away into hills, and then they were zipping along over farmland and towns and highways.

Grover played his pipes to pass the time. Zoe got bored and started shooting arrows at random billboards as they flew by. Every time she saw a Target department store—and they passed dozens of them—she would peg the store's sign with a few bulls-eyes at a hundred miles an hour.

Thalia kept her eyes closed the whole way. She muttered to herself a lot, like she was praying.

"You did good back there," Rhea told her. "Zeus listened."

It was hard to tell what she was thinking with her eyes closed.

"Maybe," she said. "How did you get away from the skeletons in the generator room, anyway? You said they cornered you."

Rhea told her about the weird mortal girl, Rachel Elizabeth Dare, who was able to see right through the Mist. Thalia nodded.

"No one knows why some mortals are like that." Thalia mused.

Suddenly Rhea flashed on something she'd never considered.

Her mom was like that. She had seen the Minotaur on Half-Blood Hill and known exactly what it was. She hadn't been surprised at all last year when Percy had told her that his friend Tyson was really a Cyclops. Maybe she'd known all along. No wonder she'd been so scared for her and Percy as they was growing up. She saw through the Mist even better than Rhea did.

"Well, the girl was annoying," Percy interrupted. "But I'm glad I didn't vaporize her. That would've been bad."

Thalia nodded. "Must be nice to be a regular mortal." She said that as if she'd given it a lot of thought.

*******

"Where you guys want to land?" Hank asked, waking Rhea up from a nap.

Rhea looked down and said, "Whoa."

Rhea had seen San Francisco in pictures before, but never in real life. It was probably the most beautiful city she'd ever seen: kind of like a smaller, cleaner Manhattan, if Manhattan had been surrounded by green hills and fog. There was a huge bay and ships, islands and sailboats, and the Golden Gate Bridge sticking up out of the fog. Rhea felt like she should take a picture or something. Greetings from Frisco. Haven't Died Yet. Wish You Were Here.